Today we offer you a look at the steampunk scene, with an insight from an Indian writer (based in Scotland). We’re very excited to have Suna Dasi on our blog! Read on to see what she has to say about the power of children books & the importance of representation in media.
Be sure to follow Suna on twitter as well!
Let’s start at the beginning. How did you first get into writing?
I’ve wanted to since before I can remember. I was an early reader – age 4 – and according to my family I announced almost instantly I was going to write when I grew up. (I was also definitely seriously going to be a dolphin trainer and a treehouse builder at some point.) I was six or seven when I wrote my first ‘book’: two children find a book, start reading it and end up in the village they are reading about, on the church’s weathercock to be specific. It was written on unevenly stapled together A4 paper, decorated with my own lumpy colour drawings and was imaginatively titled ‘The Mysterious Book’.
In primary school I was an average student, I was smart but daydreamed a lot more than I paid attention. I didn’t particularly excel at anything, except story assignments.
To such an extent that I always had to fight to convince my teachers that I’d really written the assignment myself and no, I didn’t have help. It was infuriating and lasted well into my secondary school years, until I got two unspeakably cool teachers who encouraged rather than ridiculed me.
They were my Dutch and English literature teachers respectively and though it shouldn’t matter in relationship to my skills and their teaching, they were ,in fact, also both gay. At this point I was falling in love with girls left, right and centre but had no idea where to put it. Possibly they’d noticed and sympathised in their own way. In case you think they employed favouritism: they were also the most feared and strict teachers in the school, the English lit teacher was a formidably sharp woman and everyone feared the Dutch lit teacher for his sarcasm.
When it came to the work they absolutely didn’t spare me from scathing criticism if it required it!
I kept diaries and during my teenage years I – like so many others – started incontinently throwing everything I went through onto the page in the form of excruciatingly bad poetry.
I recently unearthed some from my parents’ attic and it was ..a sobering experience.
There were a few that maybe hinted at me being a halfway decent poet but that’s about it.
I burnt the lot.
What are your favourite genres to read and write?
Quite a varied batch but my greatest loves are poetry and sci-fi. I love history, the arts, the classics, contemporary Indian writers, science, speculative fiction, and children’s fiction: Frances Hodsgon Burnett’s A Little Princess is one of my ultimate comfort reads. I am fascinated by the evolution of human consciousness in conjunction with the evolution of human sexuality at the moment, so I am reading as widely about it as I can, from Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens to Arthur Evans’ God of Ecstasy: Sex Roles and the Madness of Dionysos.
And are there any genres or tropes you wouldn’t write?
I don’t think so. I think everything in the human experience should be addressed in writing, if it suits the narrative and isn’t gratuitous, even the hot potatoes of our time, even brutal, terrible, dark aspects of human nature. I also don’t think it’s wise, or nice, to look down on certain genres as lesser than others. I enjoy a steamy romance (a notoriously and unjustly slated genre) as much as a high falutin’ literary doorstop as long as it’s well written and suits my mood/taste. It’s the same with music. If it’s good, it’s good.
How do you get inspiration for your books?
Wherever and whenever I can! I am not always consciously looking for it either, sometimes I happen to overhear a conversation on a train journey, or see a silent situation play out from a distance and off the mind goes, either adding fantastical elements to the mundane or simply filling out context based on what I’m seeing. Sometimes it’s music that sets me off, sometimes a tangent from a movie I’ve seen. People I’ve met. All of this is grist to the mill of my own experiences, which is where first and foremost everything is drawn from. Research rabbit holes can provide great story seeds, too.
Do you have a writing playlist? And if you do, does it focus more on the lyrics or melodies, vibe of the songs?
It depends. When I’m stuck, ambient or chill but deep electronica really helps. Good examples are Carbon Based Lifeforms, H.U.V.A. Network, Deepchord and compilations like Deep & Chilled Euphoria. Classical music such as traditional Indian ragas, or contemporary composers such as Philip Glass or Arvo Pärt can be unbelievably inspirational.
If I were to go for music with lyrics I lean more towards loungy vintage jazz, Melody Gardot, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald et al, or concept albums by the likes of Kate Bush, Pink Floyd, Chic, Anoushka Shankar, Weather Report, etc. Film soundtracks are fantastic, as well: Clint Mansell, Jocelyn Pook, Mica Levi and Ramin Dwajadi are favourites.
What’s your writing process? At what point do you let other people read your drafts and who are they?
VERY chaotic! I would love to say I am neat and structured but I’m not. I’m an emotionally reactive person so I tend to splurge things I feel strongly about onto page or tablet screen and then I puzzle out the rest.
I have notebooks full of jumbled ideas, I almost never set out a story structure beforehand and I’m a major procrastinator.
With short stories, I tend to write it, then fall down the – usually gaping – holes to see what can be done. It’s probably bad economy as far as effort and spent energy are concerned!
I haven’t finished an actual book yet, though I am working on a cookbook which involves a piece of fiction in every chapter to accompany the recipes.
Then there is a four-generation spanning book I really want to write in fiction form, about my own family history, dating back to the latter days of the British East India Company in India and the Caribbean.
That is the only project I have done outlines for as it is way too daunting otherwise, not in the least because it’s so close to my heart:
I have a four section plan, chapter headings and a very skeletal set of notes of what I’d like to go into each section. I’ve some disjointed scenes written out in notebooks I carry at all times but it is all very early stages. Once I come to write it, it will probably be the only thing I’ll do for some time and as a touring musician that time is not now (hence the notebooks)!
Once I think I am mostly done with a story, I let members of the arts collective I live in read it, including my partners. Some of them are writers, too, so they can be absolutely trusted to not wrap their criticisms and suggestions in cotton wool! Their insights and uncomfortable questions are invaluable and then I have to knuckle down for the hardest part: edits and rewrites.
Summarise your most recent/next book in up to 5 words and a meme.
Poetry. Speculative. Consciousness. Awakening. Dark.
Which three authors would you say influenced your writing the most?
The late Swedish writer Astrid Lindgren, who is most famous for her Pippi Longstocking books. She wrote some absolutely stunning adventure books for children that deal beautifully and magically with hard concepts such as loss, death, cowardice, loyalty etc, while at the same time balancing it out with lightness and humour. Great world building with real heart. The Brothers Lionheart and Ronia the Robber’s Daughter are amazing books and I highly recommend them to anyone of any age!
Neal Stephenson. Some of the very best science fiction writing in the world. The scope of his writing is just admirable in itself, he wrestles unbelievably high concepts into submission brilliantly, while never failing to write an absolutely cracking narrative. But I absolutely love the way he draws his women characters. Y.T. and Juanita from Snow Crash, Nell and Miranda in The Diamond Age, Zula, Yuxia and Olivia in Reamde. All his character acs are usually brilliant but it is a rare male writer who gets certain types of women so very right and it’s a hill I am quite happy to die on.
Arundhati Roy – her books made me braver as a writer. I am pretty much at a loss for words when it comes to how much I admire her writing (not to mention her stance in life). It’s magical realism but more than that because the human truths are so brutal even if they’re wrapped in such succulent prose.
The immediacy of the surroundings in the narrative, the grubby motives of the characters, the self-deceptions, the longings, the shouldering of life events and moving forward… see, I’m rambling.
I had the wondrous joy of queuing for her talk with Nicola Sturgeon at the Edinburgh Book Festival this year: I had no tickets and was part of a group of hopeful people who were looking to snag a last minute cancellation. The short bursts of movement in the queue caused such ripples of anticipation among us and it was so tense, proper high octane stuff: fellow book nerds who have ever fervently loved a particular writer will fully appreciate this! I got in just as they were announcing they were locking the doors. As I’ve mentioned, I’m very acute in my emotional responses so when she walked onto the stage I had to hide the fact I’d burst into tears from the people next to me.. and she didn’t disappoint. She’s a live wire, a burning soul. So quick off the cuff in her responses, too. Funny, fierce, utterly uncompromising and surprisingly sweary. In short, a delight!
If (when!) your books were to be made into movies, who would you like to direct them?
Ha! That would be amazing. Well, if my short Steampunk stories ‘UnMade’ and ‘Internal Devices’ were ever to be made into films, I would love for Deepa Mehta to direct: to have such a talented Indian director at the helm of something I’ve written would be beyond a dream come true, especially one who made such a brave, pioneering lesbian film like ‘Fire’. Her direction is beautiful, sensitive and brutal all at the same time and I think that would suit perfectly.
And for something that is also very important to us & what we put a lot of emphasis on when blogging. What does ownvoices LGBT representation mean to you?
It’s what makes writing live and breathe for me. The above Steampunk stories I’ve mentioned bundle those aspects together tightly: ‘UnMade’ is set on a plantation and involves a budding love affair between two indentured slaves, a Nigerian woman and an Indian woman. ’Internal Devices’ catches two Indian dancing girls in the moment their relationship crumbles.
Both stories also involve dealing with physical disability, colonialism, racism, etc.
I write from a brown queer person’s perspective. I write other things and juggle other tropes but it always will out somehow!
If I can get women snogging each other in my stories I always, always will if it fits the narrative.
The main reason I started writing Indian based Steampunk with queer poc is because there wasn’t any (at the time) from that perspective. If India featured at all, it was usually as the backdrop for the shenanigans of toffee nosed British folk having adventures in the Deep Interior, perhaps with a comic relief brown person thrown in for good measure.
I just wanted to redress the balance, plus I was aching to read about people like me!
I love the genre dearly: it’s the work I submitted first when I decided to have a crack at making an actual career out of all my passionate scribblings and what got me my first professional publication (and award nomination) but I have also branched out since, as far as genre-writing is concerned.
Rec us some great LGBT books you’ve read recently! One can never have enough recommendations!
I’ve had some forays into paranormal romance recently and highly recommend Stephanie Burgis’ Snowspelled and Gail Carriger’s How to Marry a Werewolf. Both have M/F protagonists but delightful LGBTQ supporting characters and they are completely, properly fleshed out. (I think it hardly needs emphasising since both writers are very well known for not using LGBTQ elements in their books for the sake of it.)
They have been out a while but I also continuously recommend or give away Margaret Atwood’s Hag-Seed (a brilliant riff on The Tempest) and Indra Das’ The Devourers (werewolves as you’ve never known them, written in glorious prose), fantastic books both, which also feature LGBTQ characters.
What’s one piece of advice you would like to give your younger self?
Just do it. Forget about wanting to please and be special. Don’t pander. Follow your quirks and your mind; their own language is valid. You are worthy. Don’t let your insecurities make you selfish and sharp. Dare to be vulnerable; it is the best shield. Honesty is the best weapon.
If you could have dinner with one member of the LGBT community, dead or alive, who would it be?
Amrita Sher-Gil; a turn of the century Indian painter who was openly bisexual in a time where that was very much not the done thing. I love her art, she was socially extremely brave and I would give much to share a table with her to talk, listen to music, share ideas and experiences.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Suna Dasi is an SFF writer and poet based in Scotland. She is hugely influenced in her writing by her Indian heritage, juxtaposed with her Western upbringing.
Besides the listed books, Suna Dasi has contributed to the Clockwork Watch Transmedia Project, non-fiction publications such as SciFi Romance Quarterly, Paper Droids, The SciFi/Fantasy Network and Brown Girl Magazine. Her short story ‘Unmade’, featured in ‘Steampunk Writers Around the World’, released by Luna Press Publishing, was nominated for a BSFA Award for Short Fiction in 2017.
Her profession as a singer and voice actress has taken her all over the world; her experiences in the creative industries led her to co-found female positive film -and music production companies, as well as Scotland’s only womxn-focused music festival in 2016, PandoraFest. She is part of a women driven arts collective: www.thelodgeartscollective.co.uk
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